The original resolution approved by the city council called on Gov. Rick Snyder to “veto the bill and return it to the Legislature with an objection to the inclusion of Washtenaw County as a defined Qualified region in the RTA.” That language was softened to ask the governor and legislature to amend the legislation. And a “whereas” clause in the resolution indicates the council’s support for a provision in the legislation that allows for adjacent counties of the RTA region voluntarily to join the RTA at a later date. [.pdf of the original draft of the council resolution]

The resolution indicates concern that the inclusion of Washtenaw County in the RTA would potentially risk the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority’s ability to continue its role to serve effectively as a transportation provider for Ann Arbor.

Among other additional reasons given in the resolution for the council’s objection is the characterization of the bill as containing “onerous and offensive provisions related to consideration of rail based transportation.” That’s a reference to part of the legislation that requires unanimous approval from the 9-member board of the new RTA to “acquire, construct, operate, or maintain any form of rail passenger service within a public transit region.” An east-west rail connection has been an aspiration of Ann Arbor mayor John Hieftje and other local officials for several years, and is reflected in a current study being done with federal funds to determine a locally preferred alternative for the location of a new Amtrak station.

The RTA legislation specifically mentions “rolling rapid transit” – a technology based on buses, not trains – as a possibility for four major new regional corridors: along Woodward, along Gratiot, from Pontiac to Mt. Clemens, and from Detroit to Ann Arbor. Supporters of the RTA with Washtenaw County’s current inclusion have contended that a rail-based east-west commuter line between Ann Arbor and Detroit is still achievable, or even likely, despite the requirement of unanimous board support. However, if the RTA were to implement a rail-based east-west service, that service would elude a provision in the RTA legislation designed to give assurance to other transit providers statewide – that the major costs of the RTA’s rolling rapid transit systems would not be eligible to tap the state’s comprehensive transportation fund.

The transit services offered by the RTA are imagined to be funded by a tax or a vehicle registration fee, either of which would require approval by a majority of voters in the four-county region. The proceeds of the kind of vehicle registration fee that additional legislation would allow the RTA to place on the ballot could potentially generate an estimated $75 million per year in the four-county region, and would cost the owner of an average vehicle about $25 per year.

The city council’s action echoes sentiments expressed by a Washtenaw County board resolution, passed on Nov. 7, 2012, which opposes the RTA unless it included the ability of county entities to manage designated transportation funding and the right of county entities to independently manage a transit system – which the RTA legislation doesn’t do. The county board’s resolution also indicated the view that it should be Washtenaw County residents who elect to join such an RTA. [.pdf of Washtenaw County board resolution] The board’s recent 6-4 vote came after an earlier expression of support for an RTA approved on Sept. 21, 2011.

Current county board chair Conan Smith has been a prominent supporter of the RTA legislation both in his role as county commissioner and as executive director of the Michigan Suburbs Alliance. It’s the chair of the county board that would make Washtenaw County’s two appointments to the 9-member RTA board – and that’s a role to which Yousef Rabhi is expected to be elected in January 2013. In a message sent just an hour and a half before the council’s 4 p.m. meeting on Dec. 10, Smith pled with councilmembers to back off the position expressed in the resolution. The 13-pages worth of documents that Smith sent included detailed technical background on the RTA.

It’s possible that an attempt might be made in 2013 to bring back to the county board a resolution of support for the RTA. That’s because the decennial redistricting of the county resulted in just nine seats instead of the current 11, and among the nine commissioners there might be sufficient support for such a resolution. Enacting a resolution like that would at this point have no material effect on Washtenaw County’s actual participation in the RTA – but it might sway legislators against altering the legislation to accommodate the numerous concerns listed out in the Ann Arbor city council’s resolution. Councilmembers did not appear to harbor any realistic hope that Snyder would heed the call for a veto, even when that language was included in their resolution, but they did hope to provide a basis on which legislators might themselves elect to alter the legislation.

This brief was filed from the city council’s chambers on the second floor of city hall, located at 301 E. Huron where the city council held its special session. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

Four-county region the regional transit authority (RTA) counterclockwise from Washtenaw County (orange): Wayne, Macomb, Oakland. Pushpin A is the location of the Detroit Metro airport. Major corridors on which rolling rapid transit would be provided include Gratiot (red), M-59 (yellow), Woodward (purple) and Michigan Avenue (green). (Map is by The Ann Arbor Chronicle. Routes are approximate, intended to illustrate the concept. Image links to dynamic Google Map with .kml file)

Much of the package deals with road funding, but some of the bills establish a regional transit authority (RTA) for southeast Michigan and its funding. Here’s a brief initial glance at some of the possible legislation.

HB 5309 establishes the region of the RTA as Washtenaw, Wayne, Macomb and Oakland counties. The counties are not mentioned by name, but rather are described in terms of their population – a move likely used to avoid the 2/3 majority vote required under Michigan’s constitution (Article IV Section 29) for the legislature to enact local or special acts.

The legislation specifically calls for rolling rapid transit (aka bus rapid transit) along four corridors: (1) a Woodward corridor, (2) a Gratiot corridor, (3) a northern cross-county line to operate between the city of Troy and the city of Mt. Clemens, and (4) a western cross-county 47-mile route between downtown Detroit and the downtown Ann Arbor Blake Transit Center. The Ann Arbor line is described as including stations in Ypsilanti, the Detroit Metro airport, and Dearborn.

The RTA would be governed by a 10-member board – one appointment by the governor, two each from the four counties, and one from the city of Detroit. Board members would serve 3-year terms. A county adjacent to the four-county area could be added to the region of the RTA by a vote of the governing body of that county and consent of the RTA board. The legislation also provides for the establishment of a citizens advisory committee.

A key to funding the transit service to be provided by the RTA is that it would become the designated recipient of federal and state funds for its region – supplanting the existing local authorities that are currently the designated recipients. The RTA would have the ability to designate currently operating local transit authorities – like the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority – as sub-recipients of federal and state funds.

While most votes of the RTA board would require a simple majority, placing certain ballot measures before voters in the region – including a vehicle registration fee – would require a 4/5 majority (eight of ten members) of the board. The vehicle registration fees are addressed in other bills in the package.

Two other bills in the package (HB 5012 5312 and HB 5011 5311) provide another possible mechanism for funding public transportation and the RTA. HB 5312 provides that counties can adopt a voter-approved additional vehicle registration fee of up to $1.80 per $1,000 of the list price of a vehicle as determined by the existing statute. This county-based vehicle registration fee is not restricted to just the four counties in the RTA. Any county could enact such a fee and use some of that revenue to fund public transportation – but 90% of the revenue would need to be spent on roads, under Article IX Section 9 of Michigan’s constitution. This local, county-based voter-approved vehicle registration fee adds a new section 801k to the Michigan Vehicle Code.

And HB 5311 allows the RTA to enact an additional vehicle registration fee of up to $1.20 per $1,000 of the list price of a vehicle as determined by the existing statute – if voters in the RTA region approve it. It’s possible that a county in the RTA region could enact an additional vehicle registration fee on its own (801k), and that the RTA could also enact one.

The rules for how an 801k-enacted vehicle registration fee (by a county) could interact with a fee that is approved by voters in the RTA region are also set forth in HB 5311. The first condition is that the county-based vehicle registration fee and the RTA-based fee can’t sum to more than $1.80 per $1,000 of list value.

The second condition is that the county-based fee would be adjusted downward, if necessary, to meet the first condition. Because the RTA can only enact a fee up to $1.20, but a county can enact one up to $1.80, it’s not possible for the RTA to take all of a county’s fee that the county had intended to invest locally. The limiting case would be that a county enacted a $1.80 fee, and the RTA enacted $1.20. That would result in a reduction of the county fee to $0.60 – leaving the RTA fee at $1.20.

It appears that an RTA region-wide referendum on a vehicle registration fee would pass or fail based purely on the region-wide vote. In the specific case of Washtenaw County, there’s no provision that the referendum would need to get support from a majority of voters inside Washtenaw County in order for the fee to be imposed in Washtenaw by the RTA. Such a provision would be somewhat unusual, but it’s the kind of safeguard that the Ann Arbor city council has built into a pending agreement that it may enact to establish a countywide transit governance structure in Washtenaw County.

Concern for the possibility that voter sentiment in Washtenaw is markedly different from attitudes in the other three counties is likely the reason the proposed legislation assigns two of 10 board seats on the RTA to Washtenaw County – the same number as the more populous Oakland and Macomb counties.

If the Washtenaw representatives to the board were against placing a vehicle registration fee on the ballot, the RTA would need all eight of the non-Washtenaw board representatives in order to place the measure before the RTA region voters – due to the 4/5 majority requirement. And given that one of the RTA board seats would be appointed directly by the governor, any Washtenaw County residents who were opposed to a fee might look first to that seat as the one that might prevent a ballot measure from coming forward. Gov. Rick Snyder is a resident of Washtenaw County, with a home in the Ann Arbor area. [Editor's note: See reader's observation below that the governor's appointment is ex officio, and thus non-voting.]